Asianiac_24 wrote:The Lakers have never made such bad coaching hires like MB and MDA. We have always hired good coaches that are known for winning, like PJ in 2000, Rudy T in 2005, and back to PJ in 06. I don't think anyone on this board supported the hiring of MDA. As for Jim Buss, I think either PJ or Brian Shaw would be our coach right now if not for his grudge against PJ. From all the firing of PJ's people in the organization, to letting go of Shaw and hiring MB without informing Kobe, to now hiring MDA when there was a good chance PJ would coach for our team again.

If Mitch gets fired this organization is truly a joke. Regardless of what happens this season here on out, dude is still the best GM in this league.

Amen!!! If anyone should be gone, it is Jim Buss. You cannot convince me that B Shaw would have been worse than Brown or Pringles.

I hope to God the Good Doctor and Jimmy do not Sh*t the bed and do something like fire Mitch.

Kilroy wrote:Dr. Jerry Buss had the problem with Phil... Not Jim... Or if Jim did have a problem, he was never in a position to do anything about it. Jerry vetoed the Phil hire and went with MDA not Jim...

If Jim didn't want to hire him, why would he have gone with Mitch to his house to interview him?

Hey Kilroy, do you have a link for that? I believe you, but I'm just surprised I never came across this myself.

Too lazy... There were several articles over several weeks to the effect that Jerry vetoed hiring Phil kind of at the last second. He apparently wanted to "Get back to Showtime Basketball"...

CelticsRise wrote:I am not Lakers fan but Mitch should be the last person to get any blame for this mess.

Disagreed. The blame needs to spread between the players, the coaching staff and the front office. Kupchak should not be immune. He played a part in creating this situation as well. I'm not saying that he should be fired. I'm just saying that everyone needs to be held accountable.

Outsider's perspective. Kupchak obviously is in great position to do well in his job since lots of players want to play for the Lakers given the warm weather, huge market and franchise's history. The only thing that makes the job harder then some other teams is rebuilding is frowned upon and that some scorers may have misgivings with playing with Kobe Bryant.

That being said, Kupchak deserves high marks overral for his moves over the years but the Nash trade appeared to be a significant overpay and clearly the wrong coach was hired. Howard may not be working out as well as expected but the Lakers got him at a very good price all things considered but I was surprised by the price the Lakers paid for Nash simply given Nash's age. Nash is a player going to be 39, 40 and 41 heading into the next 3 playoffs. Realistically, he had at most one good season left before age really was a major factor. Given him a 3 year contract for 27 million seemed very hight to me but I realized other teams were perhaps willing to give him even more. But giving up 4 draft picks and 2 first rounders IMHO was really overpaying. At most he was worth 1 first rounder and one second.

The only thing I can think of is a Nash move making sense if the Lakers hadn't signed their TV contract yet and Nash was brought on board to raise the value of a potential TV deal.

soxfan2003 wrote:Outsider's perspective. Kupchak obviously is in great position to do well in his job since lots of players want to play for the Lakers given the warm weather, huge market and franchise's history. The only thing that makes the job harder then some other teams is rebuilding is frowned upon and that some scorers may have misgivings with playing with Kobe Bryant.

Not Kwame for Pau great.

Being a GM with LAL is like being 1/4th GM, 3/4th answering to the LAL culture which is fans, owners, star power.

It's a very poor position one where anyone who becomes Kobe cannot be traded and where trading chips are determined as much by the players as the coaches. Something like a Dwight Howard trade even if it's a smart move is probably considered proof of being the worst GM in LA history at this point. (Lakers have never cared for success, just talk that satisfies the rich guys in the back and is good enough for the media.) It just so happens that when they chase big, they chase big and they demand big. (It's why Prime Pau Gasol is not ever acceptable to Phil but Phil also played the politics of keeping the ball away as much from Prime Gasol and keeping mum on it.)

soxfan2003 wrote:the Nash trade appeared to be a significant overpay and clearly the wrong coach was hired. Howard may not be working out as well as expected but the Lakers got him at a very good price all things considered but I was surprised by the price the Lakers paid for Nash simply given Nash's age. Nash is a player going to be 39, 40 and 41 heading into the next 3 playoffs. Realistically, he had at most one good season left before age really was a major factor. Given him a 3 year contract for 27 million seemed very hight to me but I realized other teams were perhaps willing to give him even more. But giving up 4 draft picks and 2 first rounders IMHO was really overpaying. At most he was worth 1 first rounder and one second.

The only thing I can think of is a Nash move making sense if the Lakers hadn't signed their TV contract yet and Nash was brought on board to raise the value of a potential TV deal.

From an outsider LAL fan, sort of active Orlando fan prior to the trade...Stan does a good job of overvaluing players for him. This created the illusion to some Orlando fans that Nash and Howard/Chris Paul and Howard were the missing formula for a Finals away from a dynasty. (The more of an Orlando RealGM fan you were, the more you acted like this was the Wonder Twins Power Activate to summon Wilt Chamberlain)

The other people including Mitch or Buss just jumped on board. Every one of these names are huge during the time they were traded: Turkoglu, Courtney Lee, Redick, Ryan Anderson, Gortat. None of these men are close to Howard's hype but they were all huge news. Gortat eventually meshed well with Nash. It's what I call "smart dumb" fanbase. Regardless of the users' intelligence or their ability to post great stats, most intelligent fans tend to be wrong at predicting a players' "instant fit". Even the news when Gasol was first traded was a good but not great fit. Lakers went on a run and it became a great fit ignoring how Boston was assembled that year. Odom ends up fixing Gasol-Kobe but a ring later, Pau's resurgence was the news. With those kind of buzz from the outside, it's impossible to not gamble on a Nash-Howard combo. The two had everything: star power, dual star like Shaq-Kobe, a passer that can mentor Howard to pass while you also had Kareem as a direct trainer, run and gun. On paper there's no way to play politics and tell any big shot behind the curtains that this was no Shaq-Kobe. Not pulling the trigger is on the level of not drafting Jordan because you wanted Earl Boykins behind the scenes. Stuff would get any GM killed in LA if the media gets a hold of it and sends it towards it's fans.

Gerhalt11 wrote:What? He produces better results than he should? Fire that guy!

No coach. No GM. Probably no star. I swear, in my 23 years of following this team, I can't name a stranger time than this moment to be a supporter of the Magic.

kobesmyhomie wrote:If anyone should be blamed in the organization it should be Jim Buss. To me it seems like he's the one screwing things up.

Not to single you out, but this made me lol ...It works much better as a full troll line.

But it's also hilarious because it's a pervasive point of view that's based on absolutely nothing...

Which you're line seems to acknowledge... "...it seems like he's the one screwing things up." Gold.

Yea after I read it I thought it was kinda funny too but I'm not the only one that thinks Jim Buss is the problem. I remember Magic Johnson calling him out earlier in the season and Stephen A Smith calls him out at around 3:50 in this clip.

kobesmyhomie wrote:Yea after I read it I thought it was kinda funny too but I'm not the only one that thinks Jim Buss is the problem. I remember Magic Johnson calling him out earlier in the season and Stephen A Smith calls him out at around 3:50 in this clip.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puFl6ZAoAe8[/youtube]

Yeah... A lot of people say it but most of them are repeating something someone else heard... A lot of it came from general perceptions of Jim as a slacker-son of Dr. Buss going almost back to the showtime era.

Steven A Smith for example knows nothing and calls out everyone...

I'm not sure Magic knows anything really either, but he could... I just wish he would speak more in specifics rather than the generalizations everyone uses when talking about Jim Buss.